GIS Cartography Lab

This week, we had an opportunity to create 3 maps to help us better learn how to manipulate the various tools and features located within ArcGIS.

Here are the 3 maps I created:

Map 1: Population Density

Map 2: Central Mexico

Map 3: Mexico Elevation:

Here is the Metadata I found:

Layer	Data Type	Publication Information: Who Created The Data?	Time Period Data Is Relevant	Spatial Horizontal Coordinate System	Attribute Values
Mex_roads	Line	SDC Feature Database	2007	GCS_WGS_1984	6177 Attributes
Mex_rivers	Line	SDC Feature Database	2007	GCS_WGS_1984	1870 Attributes
Mex_rails	Line	SDC Feature Database	2007	GCS_WGS_1984	1255 Attributes
Mex_urban	Polygon	SDC Feature Database	2007	GCS_WGS_1984	288 Attributes
Mex_elev	Raster	Not listed	Not listed	GCS_WGS_1984	4007 Attributes
World_Countries	Polygon	Not listed	Not listed	GCS_WGS_1984	249 Attributes
Americas_Admin	Polygon	Not listed	Not listed	CS_WGS_1984	528 Attributes
Mex_Boundary	Polygon	Not listed	Not listed	GCS_WGS_1984	1 Attribute

And here is the Process Summary for the Lab (Excluding answers to the Questions)

PART III: Process Summary Description

1.  Open up ArcCatalog
2.  Copied my data from the R: drive and extracted the data out to S:\IntroGIS\GIS Cartography\GISCartography
3.  Switched to “Preview” mode to look at some of the datasets
4.  Zoomed in on the Digital Elevation Model (I wasn’t prompted to build the pyramids)
5. Answered Question 1 based on the ArcCatalog properties.
6. Looked at the properties of the Road Layer and answered Question #2
7. Opened up ArcMap
8. With both the ArcCatalog and ArcMap open, I dragged the World Countries shapefile from ArcCatalog to ArcMap
9.  I added the Mex_boundary and Americas_Admin layers to the map using the “+” tool
10.   Put the Mex_boundary layer on top and zoomed to layer
11.   Next moved the Americas_admin to the top
12.   Browsed the Help system about the “Select By Attributes”.   I have used this feature before in my job duties
13.   My dialog box looks like this now:

14.   Verified the syntax and clicked OK to select the states.
15.   Answered Question 3
16.   I saved the selection as a shapefile.   I had a little problem with this step until I made sure I selected “Shapefile” from the dropdown list

17.   Turned off the Americas_Admin layer

18.   Added the Country Name Labels to the map with suggested font formatting
19.   Changed the World_Countries color to green and set the outline width to 2
20.   Set the symbology to show population densities with the darker colors indicating heavier population
21.   Switched the layout view to Landscape mode
22.   Added some of the requirements of any good map including the North Arrow, Scale (in Kilometers), Scale Text, Title
23.   Followed the lab to create a good Legend for the map.
24.   Added the labels to the states by looking at the Labels Tab under properties.
25.   Now have to add all of the other elements of a good map, including, name, data source, date and I added a Mexican Flag to help emphasize the point that this is about Mexico
26.   I also modified my color schemes and added commas to the Legend (Is there a way to do this automatically?)   I find the commas improve readability.
27.   Exported my JPEG for my first map deliverable.
28.   Added 4 layers to the map (rails, rivers, roads, urban and turned off states
29.   Set the River symbology to only show major and primary rivers
30.   Set the symbology on the Roads layer
31.   Set the Railroads to use the Railroad symbol
32.   Set the Urban Area Symbology
33.   Set the label feature to only label cities over a million people.
34.   Recentered the map at a zoomed in scale of 1:5000000
35.   Converted the labels for the urban areas to annotations
36.   Switched to Data View
37.   Changes the Annotation of Distrito Federal
38.   Modified the 3 other cities using the Ctrl-Click technique
39.   Modified the country name to be a larger annotation
40.   Inserted a new Data Frame in Layout view
41.   Moved “World Countries to this data frame
42.   Created the inset map
43.   Added the Extent Indicator
44.   Cleaned up the map a bit, changing color and location of items
45.   Cleaned up the title to make it more exciting
46.   Next started work on the elevation map
47.   Deleted all of the items except for the World_Countries off of the map.  Put this under “Layers” and deleted the other data frame I had created.
48.   Added in the mex_elev raster
49.   Experimented with the symbology tools available on the Raster data
50.   Answered Question 4.
51.   Created the Elevation map and updated associate map features.
52.   Recreated the second data frame because I see I DO need an inset map on this map
53.   Cleaned up the rest of the map and exported it out to a JPEG
54.   Researched the attributes and filled in the table.
55.   Answered question #5.